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Abstract
Information and Communication Technologies have great potential, in the context of natural resources utilization, to improve efficiency by making homes, offices, industries and transportation systems more ‘intelligent’: more information use can be traded off with less energy use. The paper presents a system to monitor and interactively control water and gas utilization, allowing consumers to be better informed about their consumption behaviour and challenging them to improve efficiency in utilization along with saving costs. In the system, smart meters are used in order to collect data on gas and water consumption; the data collected through this kind of meters are made available, almost in real time, in a graphical representation both to the customer and the supplier. The availability of a higher quantity of information about consumption can be used by consumers to improve utilization efficiency; moreover, it can also be seen as a challenge to modify personal consumption behaviours. As a consequence, in both cases, there can be an increase in saving natural resources and costs. In the paper, the developed system is described and its potential benefits are discussed with reference to similar experiences and a conceptual background.
6. Acknowledgements
The project described in this paper (ID4251) has been co-funded by the Italian Lombardy Region within the framework of a bid (BUR20070128, d.g.r. 24 January 2007, no. 8/4032) that aims at promoting excellence in the Lombardy meta-districts through co-operation among SMEs and research centres oriented towards R&D and Innovation. The authors acknowledge the contribution of all the partners (mentioned in the introduction), while being solely responsible for possible incomplete or erroneous statements.